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What do you think about libertarianism?
Libertarianism is an awesome political philosophy 35%  35%  [ 26 ]
Libertarianism is an alright political philosophy 17%  17%  [ 13 ]
Libertarianism is an internally inconsistent political philosophy 13%  13%  [ 10 ]
Libertarianism is a bad political philosophy 16%  16%  [ 12 ]
Libertarianism is an evil political philosophy 5%  5%  [ 4 ]
Libertarianism just is a political philosophy 13%  13%  [ 10 ]
Total votes : 75

Awesomelyglorious
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08 Aug 2008, 7:44 pm

Gromit wrote:
The point is not global warming. The point is one I have stated repeatedly. What you consider an obvious solution, that those who are being harmed should buy off those who profit from causing harm, will usually concentrate wealth and power. That would conflict with your aim of reducing concentrations of power:

The issue is that I do not see the issue of externalities as a very large one compared to how you see it. Yes, externalities exist, but they are not a dominant/defining feature of economic relations as you seem to claim.

Quote:
This is what I see as one of the internal contradictions of your position. You want to reduce concentrations of power, but when I ask about an externality, you propose increasing concentrations of wealth, and inevitably also power. When I made that point explicit, you digressed:

The issue is that I do not see this as an internal contradiction, as if we had an externality mediator, such a force would have to be more powerful than both parties so as to stand above both parties, and thus increase concentrations of power.

Awesomelyglorious wrote:
If you read again what I wrote, you will see that I know this. I didn't ask you about government. I asked what happens to concentrations of power under libertarianism. The only part of your answer that even mentioned libertarianism was:
Awesomelyglorious wrote:
A libertarian society would at least be fair enough to put all things on the market.

That says nothing about whether libertarianism concentrates power more or less than government.

Well, the issue is emphasis. I emphasized government as a tool by the wealthy to concentrate power in their hands, whereas libertarian markets would not be so much a slave. You seem to think that the wealthy by their nature will own the market more than they could own the government.

Quote:
And what would happen under your proposal that those who are harmed by CFCs should buy off those who produce them? Assuming that those who have been paid to stop producing don't just ignore their promise, what's to stop someone else starting production? Then they have to be bought off, only for yet someone else to start production. Where is the efficiency?

Well, the issue is 1) a violation of contract is a negative blow to reputation, 2) various pay-offs could be over time, 3) if we have anarchism then the legal mechanism itself is privatized and therefore actual legal action and regulation can be undertaken.

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I'm afraid that to me, this is meaningless jargon. If you want me to get that point, you have to explain in a little more detail.

And I think we are speaking past each other. Internalizing externalities means including them in economic decision making by economic actors and thus preventing dead-weight loss. That is my goal, getting rid of the dead-weight loss there. Your goal is different.

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I don't see the relevance of inside or outside a libertarian system. If you have more than one person making decisions, there will be some freedoms that are in competition: giving more freedom to one actor means reducing the freedom of another. If I were free to keep you as a slave, that would reduce your freedom. The system used to allocate those freedoms doesn't make a difference to the fact that some of them compete. Does libertarianism have a position on how freedom should be distributed? If it favours an even distribution, it includes what I would consider an aspect of social justice. You said
Awesomelyglorious wrote:
I do find social justice irrelevant, such a thing does not exist to me.
How does that fit with
Awesomelyglorious wrote:
To me, the point of libertarianism is to increase freedom by reducing the major concentration of power: government.
Why wouldn't you be happy with any distribution of freedom, however uneven? Or does social justice mean something different to you?

Ok. Some libertarians do, others do not. I do not take a position on how freedoms ought to be distributed. The statement "increase freedom" does not necessitate anything to do with social justice, and frankly has a lot to do with my own preferences on the matter. Heck, I tend to often express moral skepticism.

Quote:
I am not asking whether you can come up with a method to achieve this solution to maximizing freedom. I am asking whether the solution itself is consistent with libertarianism.

Maximum concentration like that, is likely not consistent with libertarianism. I mean, obviously like any framework, if you bend it like mad, then you can find all sorts of crazy things whether you speak of democracy, monarchy or whatever have you. It is theoretically possible though.

Quote:
That would include freedom. That makes me wonder: you sometimes seem to dismiss an argument because you say it is based on something subjective:
Awesomelyglorious wrote:
Externalities exist, they will always exist, it is not even wrong for them to exist as the very existence of an externality is subjective.

So when you write
Awesomelyglorious wrote:
To me, the point of libertarianism is to increase freedom by reducing the major concentration of power: government.

what do you say when I substitute a few other terms for externality?

I do dismiss an argument based upon something subjective simply because you sort of have to do that if you hold to a certain system. I mean, frankly, subjectively, you can dismiss all systems in existence if you ever so chose.

Quote:
Government coercion exists, it will always exist, it is not even wrong for it to exist as the very existence of coercion is subjective.

I'd say that premises 1 and 2 are false(while they must logically be true with externalities), and that premise 3 of "subjective coercion", can be made false if we define the term coercion such that it is such. Frankly though, I have not been using the term "coercion" very much.

Quote:
Concentrations of power exist, they will always exist, it is not even wrong for them to exist as the very existence of concentrations of power is subjective.

This one, however, I will say is partially true. I only wish that people allowed the 3rd premise to be truer, as the more subjective people claim the government is, the less objective capability it actually has. This is why I am not so much afraid of concentrations of power in a libertarian society, because there would be less monoculturalism, less monolegalism, less mono-anythingism, and thus power structures will be more competitive, and can have varying cultural bases.

Quote:
You missed the point. I'll change my example, in the hope that the new one is clearer.

We both live in a libertarian society. I am your neighbour. I know that I have a terminal disease which is guaranteed to kill me within a month. I want to live well during that month and promise to dispose of radioactive waste. I get paid for the job. I store the waste in containers that will keep the stuff perfectly safe for just over a month. I store the stuff in my garden, by the fence to your property. Disposing of the waste safely will cost more than all my property is worth. Everyone knows all this. After a month, I die. Who owns the waste? No one will want to own it. Let's make the problem more acute. I make a will in which I give all my property to you. Are you now the owner? If you refuse, who else will be?

Well, if everyone knows this, and knows that your waste will contaminate my property, then we already have a question of an externality that can be addressed before you die. However, if this damage ONLY impacts your property's value, then there is no problem. It is hard to say that any item in existence has negative value, even if it is covered with radioactive waste. I could even theoretically refuse ownership allowing the first person to want the land to take it(and it is hard to say that nobody will ever take anything that is completely free). Let's say that nobody takes it and nobody owns it, still no real problem. Now, I suppose this can be taken as a contradiction to the prior point of "unowned, how?", but then again, it is still arguable that an unowned piece of property is somewhat owned, in as much as the legal nature of it's ownership is defined. Perhaps more of a past overstatement on my part though, partially because I find it difficult to believe that something free would remain unowned, as at the very least a speculator might take the radioactive waste covered land and hold it in hopes of the land being desirable for one reason or another.

Quote:
You haven't told me yet who will own the waste and be liable to deal with it. Taking me to court won't give you, my pissed off neighbour, enough compensation. Remember that disposal costs more than the total value of all my assets. That is exactly the same situation as when a company goes bust, with debt left over. Who owns the liabilities?

No, but it doesn't have to. If I screw you over enough, then that is a lesson to future screwer overers not to screw people over. I would say that the owners of the liabilities for a company that collapses would be the ones who have the debt owed to them, as after all, they lent to an entity that no longer exists, that is the nature of lending. So, it really seems a different situation.

Quote:
Even if I had enough money that you, my pissed off neighbour, could use it to deal with the waste, that doesn't address my original question what happens when the time delay is long enough that those who are affected are not yet alive and so unable to object. I reduced the time delay only to explain my separate question about who will own what no one wants to own when the original owner no longer exists.

The issue is that those who aren't alive but who know about the externality, cannot have an externality really thrust upon them. They will know in advance before they act, so it isn't a problem. Let's just say that we have the same situation, where you have radioactive waste that will ruin my lawn but only after 100 years, and everyone knows about that. Well, the fact that everyone knows that this will happen will lower my property values because nobody would want to get stuck with the corrupted land, therefore, the future externality is a present one as well, and thus information solves the system.

Quote:
What is your reason for wanting to reduce concentrations of power? Do you have any reason that is not related to some moral position, and therefore empty? Do you have a reason that is not subjective? Would you agree that "just" and "fair" have very similar meanings? Is there anything in your objection to "just" that would not apply to "fair"? You justified your reference for libertarianism over government by reference to fairness:
Awesomelyglorious wrote:
A libertarian society would at least be fair enough to put all things on the market.

Unless there is a difference between "just" and "fair" that makes "just" empty and "fair" not empty, I take this as another internal contradiction.


My reason? I don't like other people. I am not invoking morality at all, I am invoking my dislike of having other people tell me what to do. The issue is that subjective reasons cannot be debated, argued with, or anything like that, therefore they can be dismissed off-hand. I may not have said this before, I am not trying to convince you, I am pretty certain I never will, and I honestly don't care beyond that. All I care about is that I have some level of internal consistency, and not even that so much, as I don't care about politics too much anyway. It is a fun game and nothing more. Especially given that there is no such thing as a right answer so much as systems that can according to certain conceptualizations be coherent, and most of the time, any conceptualization dies a little on impact with reality, and such the system lacks a certain realism no matter what. Or what, do you think that political discussion will actually find any level of truth at all? The "fairness" justification, is partially just a terminological issue. I really did not care so much for the moral definition of fair, so much as I meant something more along the lines of egalitarian or some other term with a more analytic definition. Fair is empty, but I am not being internally contradictory just by using a commonly used term in a commonly understood manner when I should have been clearer.



NeantHumain
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08 Aug 2008, 11:20 pm

Different political philosophies are most suitable for different types of people. For example, it is rare for a compassionate person to subscribe to libertarianism, and it is equally rare for an independent-minded individual to subscribe to communism or any other authoritarian ideology. Such individuals then extend the notion that what's most suiting for them should be the way the totality of society and government is organized. The fact that governments and social structures affect many people necessarily requires compromise to function maximally well for the most people.



twoshots
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08 Aug 2008, 11:22 pm

NeantHumain wrote:
Different political philosophies are most suitable for different types of people. For example, it is rare for a compassionate person to subscribe to libertarianism, and it is equally rare for an independent-minded individual to subscribe to communism or any other authoritarian ideology. Such individuals then extend the notion that what's most suiting for them should be the way the totality of society and government is organized. The fact that governments and social structures affect many people necessarily requires compromise to function maximally well for the most people.

Hmm. Yes. Why can't we all just come together and do things the Rawlsian liberalist way :wtg:.


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Awesomelyglorious
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08 Aug 2008, 11:28 pm

NeantHumain wrote:
Different political philosophies are most suitable for different types of people. For example, it is rare for a compassionate person to subscribe to libertarianism, and it is equally rare for an independent-minded individual to subscribe to communism or any other authoritarian ideology. Such individuals then extend the notion that what's most suiting for them should be the way the totality of society and government is organized. The fact that governments and social structures affect many people necessarily requires compromise to function maximally well for the most people.

Well, who wouldn't? Frankly, the very notion of what a person wants is how they want society to work. Can you ever want something you do not want?

Why compromise? Screw the others, do what I want. I mean, after all, why is "maximally well" for others something that I would want a society to aspire to? Aren't you just presupposing utilitarianism or perhaps Rawlsianism in order to assert what you want from society and then pulling a little slight of hand to disguise that as well? Couldn't I then counter-argue that in order to function maximally well for most individuals, what needs to be done is maximization of neutrality, and thus argue that libertarianism is the most liberal(and thus neutral) society by striving to allow each individual to aspire to what they desire rather than seeking to impose external restrictions upon them? The fact of the matter is that compromise is in and of itself an ideology, for it is the democratic ideology, as opposed to a number of other rulership possibilities and other competing virtues.